A Fort Mill man was charged April 17 after he was accused of stealing campaign signs along Doby’s Bridge Road and Fort Mill Parkway.
Scott Kodell, 51, is charged with one count of petit larceny for the Easter afternoon crime.
According to the York County Sheriff’s Office incident report, Kodell was observed stealing signs by Indian Land resident Joe St. John, campaign manager for Republican 5th District congressional candidate Tommy Pope.

The list of five third-party candidates seeking the 5th Congressional District seat has dropped to four.
Victor Kocher (pronounced “CO-her”) was selected as the nominee of the S.C. Libertarian Party early this month in Columbia over opponents Nathaniel Cooper and Bill Bledsoe.
The self-employed Kocher, 55, has previously sought public office several times dating back to 2008. Most recently, he ran for the S.C. House District 79 seat in 2016 and the U.S. Senate held by Lindsey Graham in 2014.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed a controversial bipartisan pension-reform bill Tuesday that will pump money into the state pension system to ensure that state and local government retirees will get what they’ve been promised.
The S.C. House approved the bill in late February, and the state Senate approved it April 5. McMaster had until midnight Tuesday to sign the bill into law.
While the legislation does prop up the state’s in-the-hole pension plan, McMaster called it only the first step, noting that more must be done.

Sheri Few is sticking to her guns, particularly the prominent AR-15 in her most recent online political ad.
Few, one of seven Republicans running for the 5th Congressional District seat, has been the most incendiary campaigner from the start.
Friday she drew criticism for a 30-second commercial that she started airing on her website. The ad criticizes fellow Republicans Tommy Pope and Ralph Norman for voting to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds in 2015.

With nine days left before the party primaries, Republican Ralph Norman and Democrat Archie Parnell have raised the most money in the race for the state’s 5th Congressional District seat.
The two are among the 15 candidates vying to replace Mick Mulvaney, who resigned in February to become White House budget chief.

Twelve of the 15 candidates for the 5th District congressional seat had plenty to say Tuesday night, sitting elbow-to-elbow onstage in USC Lancaster’s Bundy Auditorium.
They had to choose their words carefully and quickly, given the 90-minute time limit for the Before You Vote candidate forum. That worked out to about seven minutes of talking per candidate, covering a wide variety of issues.

Two of the three Democrats in the hunt for the 5th District U.S. House seat visited Lancaster on Thursday night trying to convince members of the local Democratic Party why they are the best choice in the upcoming special election.
Les Murphy told the crowd of about 30 partisans he is the statesman that District 5 needs. A statesman, he said, differs from a politician in that a statesman takes care of those who elect him.

Tonight’s scheduled debate among the three Democrats seeking the state’s vacant 5th District congressional seat has been canceled.
No specific reason was given, and it is not known if the debate will be rescheduled for a later date.
“We had to pull the plug on the town hall meeting,” said Keith Grey, chairman of the Lancaster County Democratic Party. The debate had been scheduled for 7 p.m. at USC Lancaster’s Stevens Auditorium.